What is the best thing a CEO could teach an entry level employee? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Auren Hoffman, SafeGraph CEO, on Quora:
What is the best thing a CEO could teach an entry level employee?
Leverage.
The number one thing most entry-level employees do not understand is how valuable they are to the business. For a business to thrive, each employee must ultimately be worth three times their wages to the business. That means if someone is getting paid $60k per year, their worth to the business likely exceeds $180k.
People often underestimate what they are worth.
One way people, especially more junior employees, underestimate themselves is by failing to spend most of their time on things that are really hard for them to do. All employees (not just entry level employees) should strive to have at least 70% of their time doing things that are really difficult. These are the tasks that require the most thought, rigor, and attention. And these are the tasks that result in the most growth.
If you are doing something that is easy for you to do, you should find a way not to do it.
Figuring out how NOT do something is almost always hard. Maybe you can have someone else in the organization do it (where it would be hard for them). Maybe you can outsource it. Maybe you can automate it. Maybe you can find a software vendor that does most of it. Maybe the organization doesn't really need to do it.
Figure it out.
This is about you getting leverage and the organization getting leverage.
This is the most important thing entry level employees need to learn. It is often also the most important thing that ALL employees need to learn. I personally struggle with this and constantly need to remind myself to focus on leverage.
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